Ohio releases plan to curb Lake Erie algae blooms by 2025

Sunday

Nov 19, 2017 at 5:32 AMNov 20, 2017 at 9:25 AM

Ohio has taken the first step in its role in a bi-national plan to address the annual toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie.

The state released its "Domestic Action Plan 1.0" on Friday. It is part of a 2015 deal made among several states, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Canada’s government, aimed at cutting Lake Erie's nutrient load by 40 percent by 2025.

Its release followed weeks of anticipation from scientists and environmental groups, and includes revisions based on public input gathered earlier this year.

“We had wanted to get it to (the U.S. EPA) sooner, actually,” said Karl Gebhardt, executive director of the Ohio Lake Erie Commission. “This draft is just that: a 1.0 version. We can’t let perfect get in the way of good.”

In September, a team of nine prominent Lake Erie scientists submitted a white paper outlining the most up-to-date harmful algal bloom research in the hopes of informing state agencies as they pulled together their domestic plans.

“I believe in science-based decisions. I do think we’ve given them the necessary tools to make those decisions, said Jeff Reuter, a co-author and former director of Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Lab.

Friday’s plan grew by about 30 pages of detail from previous drafts, and includes the addition of timelines for more than 50 goals and milestones. But researchers expressed frustration that the science included in the white paper didn't appear to have made the cut.

Some experts, such as Gail Hesse, who formerly served as Ohio’s Lake Erie Commission executive director, said they would have liked to have seen more concrete strategy for reducing the phosphorus load and metrics for tracking the progress to be included in the updated document.

“It reads like a grocery list, but there’s no recipe. It feels like they’ve added more ingredients," said Hesse, co-author and director of the National Wildlife Federation's Great Lakes water program. "It still reads as a statement of intention. It’s the beginning of a plan. That’s not good enough.”

The size and visibility of this year’s bloom — the third biggest on record in the past 15 years that, at its peak, blanketed about 1,000 square miles of Lake Erie — is enough to continue to put public pressure on agencies and lawmakers to do more, said Tim Davis, an aquatic biologist at Bowling Green State University.

One Ohio State University study released this year calculated algae blooms at Buckeye Lake and Grand Lake St. Marys have cost homeowners $152 million in lost property value. Another paper estimated Lake Erie blooms can drop fishing license sales by at least 10 percent.

“We still have a big problem in Lake Erie,” said George Elmaraghy, former head of the Ohio EPA’s Division of Surface Water.

Gebhardt said he plans to form an advisory commission in January that will monitor the state’s progress toward the 40 percent reduction.

“It’s going to be a stretch. We can’t wait until 2020 or 2025 to see if we’ve achieved those goals," he said. "We need to approach this like the Apollo moon shot: this needs to be all hands on deck."

Over the coming decades, the impacts of climate change — warmer summers and more intense, frequent spring storms — will play an increasing factor, added Ohio State agriculture professor Jay Martin.

“The concern is about 2030, 2040 and onward,” he said.

Scientific understanding of the blooms and how to forecast them has advanced greatly, experts agree. But turning research into an actual reduction in the phosphorus runoff that feeds toxic algae has not made similar progress.

“There’s an opportunity to make a roadmap for our path back to a blue lake,” said Kristy Meyer, Ohio Environmental Council's vice president of policy and natural resources. “If we know that we won’t hit the mark, we need to be willing to do more.”

mrenault@dispatch.com

@MarionRenault

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